Could we be in for a Record Season?

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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This team just isn’t very good. It’s looking more and more like that 2002 that got off to such a great start and then finished .500 the rest of the year.
At least you'll have your summer free from the yoke of fandom.
 

uk_sox_fan

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Nov 11, 2006
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This team just isn’t very good. It’s looking more and more like that 2002 that got off to such a great start and then finished .500 the rest of the year.
What?

Do you wake up mornings and say to yourself, "I haven't posted anything moronic in a while - I better get on that."
 

Sale4CY

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Apr 6, 2018
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What?

Do you wake up mornings and say to yourself, "I haven't posted anything moronic in a while - I better get on that."
What’s so great about this team? Our rotation is a hot mess after Chris Sale, ditto for our bullpen after Kimbrel, even more so now that we are down a man. Our bottom third of the order is by far the least productive in baseball.

So again I ask, what’s so great about this team?
 

Remagellan

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I hated this thread from the moment I saw it. On that day I wanted to post “are you familiar with this game called baseball?” because no team is as good as it appears when it’s riding the sort of streak the Sox began on (or the MFYs are currently on). Even the best teams are going to have a period when things don’t go their way. That’s baseball. The best teams lose at least 40 games, the worst teams win at least 40 games, and what divides them is the other half of the season.

This team is still capable of another 17-2 run or something similar. And that’s even if we never get much production out of the C and CF position. The idea that this team deserves to be buried in May is as ridiculous as the one that it deserved to be coronated in April. The Dodgers came as close as a team could to winning a World Series last season and they had a period last season in which they seemed like they were the greatest team in the history of the sport, and then a long one in which they couldn’t buy a win. And they still came within a few plays of winning a championship in five games that they lost in seven.

Again, that’s baseball. Maybe you should just calm down and watch a little of it. It might be rough right now, but trust me, it’ll get better in time. And then it will get worse. And then it will get better again. Because it always does.
 

joe dokes

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What’s so great about this team? Our rotation is a hot mess after Chris Sale, ditto for our bullpen after Kimbrel, even more so now that we are down a man. Our bottom third of the order is by far the least productive in baseball.

So again I ask, what’s so great about this team?
2nd best record in MLB? Is that "great?" I don't know. And I don't care.
 

LogansDad

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Nov 15, 2006
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Yeah, they had a hot stretch. It’s pretty clear that was an aberration.
They are 11-12 since the unsustainable hot start. If that is your definition of a terrible team, then, man I'm glad for your sake that you aren't a Rays fan or some such.

I get it. We expect our teams to be great in Boston. They have, by and large, been very good for a long time now, with obvious notable exclusions to that. We also went through a long, long rough stretch where they mostly sucked, and having the big 4 teams be relatively good to very good or great for the last 18 years or so has been pretty awesome from a sports fans' perspective.

Giving up on them and calling them not good in a non-game thread environment after an 11-12 stretch seems like a pretty big overreaction to me.

Also, I'm (mostly) glad that I am out of the local area and not subjected to the Boston media, because it feels like this is a tack that they take early and often.
 

sean1562

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Sep 17, 2011
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it has been difficult to watch this team falter as the Yankees are scorching hot. I think this team is a good to great team, but we really need an .800+ OPS from Devers, Ramirez and Benintendi and Price to have an ERA around 3.5-3.75 for us to really fulfill our potential. Betts is an amazing player but he will not hit like he is all year long, and that is what is carrying this team at the moment. Getting Pedroia back will be huge
 

joe dokes

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it has been difficult to watch this team falter as the Yankees are scorching hot. I think this team is a good to great team, but we really need an .800+ OPS from Devers, Ramirez and Benintendi and Price to have an ERA around 3.5-3.75 for us to really fulfill our potential. Betts is an amazing player but he will not hit like he is all year long, and that is what is carrying this team at the moment. Getting Pedroia back will be huge
I dont know. The Sox suck and the Yankees are scorching. Yet the best those best-ever-in-history Yankees can do is a 1.5 game lead.
Screw "fulfilling potential." Teams dont compete against some ideal versions of themselves.
 

drbretto

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Apr 10, 2009
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Every team has lengthy .500ish stretches. Good teams also have some nice runs like that 17-2. Both the Sox and Yankees have run into similar stretches this year. It's a long season.
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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Baseball Prospectus Playoff Odds projects the Sox to go 65-55 (.542) down the stretch for another 93-69 season, finishing six games behind the Yankees. Feels about right these days.
 

Adrian's Dome

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Aug 6, 2010
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Yeah, they had a hot stretch. It’s pretty clear that was an aberration.
Have you ever watched baseball?

It's a long season. Within long seasons, there are up and down streaks. The 2004 Sox (doubt you remember them, but stay with me) played .500 ball for two consecutive months right in the middle of the summer. Exactly zero people here have an issue with "how good" they were.

Try to make valid points. That isn't one.
 

lapa

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Apr 20, 2018
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No no no. It's good that the Yankees are rolling now. It will make it all the sweeter when we spank them in the ALCS later.
 

grimshaw

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The Yankees started 9-9. These stretches happen. Their pythag is right around what their record should be, so it's not like it has been a mirage.
 

Adrian's Dome

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You know what's crazy? This team has played significantly more on the road than home, and the Yankees the opposite, yet they're all of 1.5 games up. If you'd told me that'd be the case on May 16th the day before opening day, my response would've been "sweet, that means nothing has gone insanely wrong."

A 1.5 game lead in mid-May is essentially meaningless. If this is a scenario where you panic, baseball is not the game for you.
 

OurF'ingCity

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Yeah, they had a hot stretch. It’s pretty clear that was an aberration.
Who cares? The wins still count the same whether it was an "aberration" or not. And thanks to that "aberration," all they really need to do is be like 10 games over .500 the rest of the way to be in great position for a playoff spot. Put another way, if they just play close to .500 baseball for most of the rest of the season except for one more hot streak, they'll almost certainly make the playoffs (probably the stupid Wild Card game thanks to the Yankees, but who knows).
 

HangingW/ScottCooper

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The team isn't playing as well as we think they should, but really the biggest "weakness" is the bullpen. Short of a major injury I'm thinking that a legit 8th inning weapon is the only tweak that needs to be made.
 

MikeM

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May 27, 2010
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All in all I'm actually feeling pretty good with where we are now. At least in terms of the 2018 team outlook and in overall comparison to the rest of the playoff hopefuls.

As long as Price manages to stay on the field the pitching issues as a whole (bullpen) look fixable with tweaks that actually have a reasonable chance of happening. Even with our limited trade bait. Same goes for the lineup too. Unlike a lot of people lately I'm still not overly concerned with the lack of catching offense in the aftermath of adding JDM, and a corner OF/DH upgrade shouldn't even be too difficult in the event Bradley continues to suck and one/both of Hanley/Moreland revert back to being mediocre.
 

trekfan55

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The team isn't playing as well as we think they should, but really the biggest "weakness" is the bullpen. Short of a major injury I'm thinking that a legit 8th inning weapon is the only tweak that needs to be made.
Joe Kelly is a legit 8th inning weapon.
The rest are very good relievers with some exceptions.

The Sox do not have the chips or the budget to go and acquire the next Andrew Miller, like the Indians did two seasons ago. Maybe Thornburgh is the answer. Maybe not. But to expect the Sox ti have 3 closers in their bullpen (and to use them every day after the 6th inning) is not realistic.

There will be games where a guy like Poyner faces someone he shouldn't and gives up an insurance run or two. Cora will learn. I don't see Poyner facing a RHH in the playoffs in a 1 run game in the late innings.

But yes, Carson Smith's injury sucks big time.

BTW the team is also suffering from untimely hitting. Hopefully this gets corrected.
 

Jerry’s Curl

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Feb 6, 2018
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The good news is they aren’t getting swept leading to a prolonged losing streak. At some point, they will catch fire again. They are somewhere between April and May’s team so far.
 

uk_sox_fan

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Nov 11, 2006
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What’s so great about this team? Our rotation is a hot mess after Chris Sale, ditto for our bullpen after Kimbrel, even more so now that we are down a man. Our bottom third of the order is by far the least productive in baseball.

So again I ask, what’s so great about this team?
So Fangraphs, which unlike lurkers on this site is entirely unemotional and stat-based in its assessments, projects the Sox to finish with the 3rd best record (97.8 wins) and the 3rd best odds of winning the WS (12.6%) in baseball. In terms of projected wins they are far closer to the projected leaders: Yankees (100.2) than the 4th best Nationals (93.1). So, warts and all, they are quite clearly in the 90th-percentile of baseball teams. That's pretty great.

The bullpen that you so decisively deride is currently 5th in MLB in FIP, 4th in xFIP and 3rd in WAR. The starters are 5th in FIP, 6th in xFIP and 4th in WAR. They also have more legitimate starting rotation depth than any Sox team in my memory.

In contrast to last year's power woes, Sox hitters have the highest slugging percentage in baseball (despite the 2nd place club playing in a Little League sized stadium) and have scored the 2nd most runs as well (behind that aforementioned club).